Yet another employer strangled, house ransacked

New Delhi, June 9 (IANS) A 58-year-old man was strangled to death allegedly by his domestic help and his accomplice in an east Delhi home Monday, within three days of a similar incident in the national capital region. The body of Anil Sharma was found with a bedsheet around his neck and hands and legs tied when his 74-year-old mother Indira went to check on him in his room of their first floor flat in the Farsh Bazaar area around 1.30 a.m.

“I woke up to go to bathroom around 1.20 a.m. and saw lights in the house switched on. I thought my widowed daughter-in-law and her children had returned from Allahabad after attending a religious ceremony,” Indira told the police.

“But on hearing some strange sounds I went inside the room and found a stranger sitting there. I was asking the stranger from where he had come, but in the meantime our domestic help Shankar Thapa came with two buckets full of clothes,” she added.

The police said the men laughed at her and left the home immediately. Finding the matter suspicious she went to Anil’s room and found him dead. The room was ransacked.

“The family had hired the servant last year and his background was not verified through police. We have launched search to nab him and his friend,” a police official said.

The family of an industrialist was found drugged at their Noida home Saturday and his wife later died. Their domestic help is the prime suspect, and he is missing.

On June 6, two domestic helps allegedly looted Rs.2 million from the Pitampura house of their employer, while the family was away shopping. Before fleeing, the helps tore away their photographs to avoid identification.

Seeing the rising incidence of crime against senior citizens in the capital, Delhi Police last year launched a service wherein the elderly can register with their local police station. In return, the police make house calls, inspect their homes, advise them on security arrangements and verify the background of their domestic help.

So far, about 5,000 senior citizens have signed up for this service, but the results are yet to be seen.

Delhi Police undertook a two-week drive last month to verify the antecedents of domestic helps employed by senior citizens.